


Reconnect

by Annakie



Series: The Onusverse [8]
Category: Sparks Nevada Marshal on Mars, The Thrilling Adventure Hour
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-16
Updated: 2015-03-16
Packaged: 2018-03-18 02:24:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3552506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annakie/pseuds/Annakie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Red Plains Rider prepares for her Hee-Ros K’west, with the help of Croach the Tracker, and then undergoes her trials without him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reconnect

**Author's Note:**

> It's been awhile since Mansion or I put up a new Onusverse chapter, so please enjoy this one. If you haven't read the Onusverse, please consider checking out my profile and catch up with our work! It's all canon compliant, including this story, so you don't need to catch up on it before reading this. Enjoy!

“Boh’tah mi-heliee ooooootaah’ak,” Croach enunciated, slowly and clearly.

“Booh tah me helley ooootak,” Red imitated him, her face a wall of concentration.

She watched Croach’s lips purse for a moment. He opened them as if to say something, paused to reconsider briefly, then spoke. “You are… improving, The Red Plains Rider,” he said.

Red wasn’t sure exactly how much she’d improved, but she thought she at least maybe got the intonation closer to right this time. Croach wouldn’t have said it if he didn’t mean it, though.

“But not good enough yet?” she asked.

Another small pause before speaking. “No, you would not pass the recitation, with your current pronunciation” he said. Red felt her lip curling just a touch, and tried to stop it. They’d been at it for damn near two hours today, and she was starting to wonder if she’d ever get this part right.

“However, your improvement is encouraging. Be edified, The Red Plains Rider. I believe you will pass your recitation in time. Shall I prepare some coffee beverage before we try again?”

Red took a deep breath, then another, then a third. “No, Croach, reckon I’m ready,” she replied. “From the top?”

“The top of this page of the Collected Scrolls of G’loot Praktaw begins mid-sentence. I do not think-”

“No, I mean, the beginning of the section.”

“This section begins one third of the way down the page.”

If it had been Nevada acting like this, she would have been tempted to make the back of his head and the flat of her hand acquaintances. But it was Croach, and he was just staring at her with those big black eyes, and with a patience with her so deep that it made her find wells of patience for herself she had no idea existed.

“Got it,” she replied. “Boh- Boh’tah me-helle oooootahak.”

* * *

 

“The Red Plains Rider, have you studied the bestiary of the Forest of Tak’slaw as suggested?” Croach asked, almost close to a yell. “As you know, I cannot reveal to you which trials you may face.”

“Yeah Croach, I done it,” Red responded, and adjusted her hat. They were standing out near Felton’s farm, clearing out a small mess of cactoids that had gotten all tangled up together and jammed up a bunch of other cactoids, causing a low-orbit traffic jam. Mostly they were clearing ‘em out by way of shooting ‘em. It was Nevada’s day off, and someone had to keep the tenderfoots in town clear from trouble.

Red tended to avoid cactoids when at all possible these days. Ever since she’d freed Jim from being frozen by that space criminal overlord, and he’d told her he still needed to find himself some more and do some more good. Just thinking about anything that had anything to do with cactoids made her stomach tie up in knots she wasn’t sure would ever come undone.

It was so much simpler now, when all she had to do was think about passing her trials, and reconnecting with the tribe. It felt like in the last month she’d spent more time with Barlok the Wise and the small group of martians who’d done the most work raising her than she had in the thirteen or so years she’d been raised in the tribe. And she’d also spent more time with Croach, studying and just learning from him than she had since… well since they used to spend time at the waterfall. She’d avoided that place as much as possible the last few years, too. Til she’d stopped by to take a bath before heading into town yesterday. Sometimes Croach needed a hand on Nevada’s day off. Spending a day together was a good way to learn a lot, anyhow. If there was time, they could go back over her recitation again.

She’d almost not come with Croach when the distress call from Felton started blaring over the marshal station speakers. But Croach had given her that one-eyebrow-cocked-if-he-had-eyebrows look when she didn’t hop up with him, and well, that was that.

Red took aim at a fast-orbiting fat cactoid, one of the most dangerous ones, and shot, just as the electric hum of Croach nocking a techno arrow filled her ears. Red ducked back behind the bolder she and Croach were using for cover just in time to avoid a small spray of cactoid guts misting down. Croach wasn’t so lucky, but closed his eyes to avoid the worst of it without removing the arrow. The sun was starting to set behind him, but still peeking out in the lopsided triangle made by his arm, his body, and his bow.

Nevada seemed to draw all the attention whenever he was around. She’d forgotten what a striking figure Croach could cut.

“Sorry,” she said, aiming her rifle again, just as the _twang!_ of Croach’s arrow flying free cut the air. Croach’s arrow hit true, but at a target farther away. Croach tried to wipe the bright purple of the cactoid guts from his forehead, but more managed to smear it around. Red glanced at him and smiled, both sorry that she was the cause of the mess and not, because something about the way the mist colored and blended with the blue of Croach was well, almost pretty.

“No matter, the marshal station has cleaning facilities,” Croach replied, reaching behind him to draw another arrow from his quiver.

Red took aim at a slower cactoid that was nearly past. “Since when did you go all soft, bathing in the station? Too good for the lake?”

“Several adolescent humans would gather to watch when I bathed in the lake nearby town. They performed… giggling.”

“Like they was laughing at you? You want I should shoot them, too?” Red offered, the corner of her lip pulling up. She was only mostly joking.

“Sparks Nevada suggested they might possess a… crush.”

“Now ain’t that the sweetest,” Red said, pulling her rifle’s trigger. The cactoid in her aim exploded in a violent purple, but far enough away to keep them both dry. “They think yer cute.”

“I am not ‘cute’, The Red Plains Rider.” Croach insisted. His bow was nocked again, but he turned his head to look at her, so she glanced over at him, too.

“Yeah I know, yer _handsome_.”

She’d meant it as a teasing jab, and said it that way, but the words hung in the air. She felt her face flush. Croach continued to look at her for a moment, then glanced into the sky just long enough to take out another cactoid. That one exploded with something that almost sounded like a deflated sigh, and the noise of it broke their silence. Red laughed nervously, and lifted her gun again.

“Thank you, The Red Plains Rider,” Croach said, drawing another arrow. She was going to say something like “I was just jokin’” but hesitated just a tick, not even sure why. She pulled the trigger and blew up another cactoid instead. That one was green inside. Rare, maybe the pack leader, if cactoids had such a thing.

“Now, should you be confronted with a herd of six _kartolek_ , what should your response be?” Croach’s asked, as his arrow flew and found another target.

* * *

 

“Boh’tah mi-heliee ooooootaah’ak, notu soaaaaaaa el lek ek ek mahno, Nah Nohtek,”

Most of the entire tribe had gathered, a sea of blue in front of her, and a line of martian young’uns on either side of her, there to test each of the youngling’s recitation. Each of the thirteen younglings, and G'rop N'go-goth was still counted as a youngling, as she had not completed the rituals, would speak three paragraphs chosen at random from the scrolls. This was Red’s third paragraph, but it had also been one of the hardest she’d had to learn.

The night before, she and Croach had sat up under the stars and read together by the campfire, long after Nevada had started snoring next to them. It was this paragraph in particular they had read over and over, until Croach was satisfied. She’d been so gul-dang tired by the time they’d finished, she’d felt her head nearly drooping to Croach’s shoulder a time or two. Finally he’d declared there was nothing more to teach her, and stood watch for a few more hours so she could sleep.

She’d woken up with Croach’s extra blanket draped over her, Nevada still snoring and coffee dripping in the instakettle they’d brought. Three hours of sleep was better than none, she supposed. Croach had made the coffee extra strong.

Red glanced up. It was easy to spot Sparks about a third of the way back in the crowd, the only pink and red in all that blue. Croach was next to him, his eyes intent on her. She took a deep breath and dropped her eyes back down to the scroll she held. Luckily, she hadn’t had to memorize anything, just say all the words on the paper right. This was just ceremony to the kids who’d spoken mostly martian their whole lives. For her, it was probably the hardest trial.

“Eeektah laaaahino’pah ightarp, Nah Nohtek. Eeectar mahno’barka puhtiahaaaaaaaaaaaaan. Nah Nohtek, prais’ebe, prais’ebe Nah Nohtek.”

She glanced up at Croach, who was close enough she could read his expression. Sparks almost looked bored, but shot her a goofy smile and a thumbs up. She rolled her eyes at him just a little, but the corners of Croach’s lips turned up, just enough for her to see. One last part to go.

“Nohbahtok Nah Nohtek, nohbahtok bah loh achlohpah, bah tokloh barachbar nah cro lohachtok, bah tokloh barachbar cropahlohnoh cro, bah tokloh bah loh Lohachbar Achpah.”

Red looked up from her scroll, and there was silence in the crowd of martians.

The only sound was one lone person clapping, one pink-skinned human, and that wasn’t for very long.

She couldn’t tell if she passed or not, because the kid next to her started speaking. Instead, she searched for Croach’s face, he’d tell her for sure. She looked at him, and raised her eyebrows.

 _Did I do it? Did I pass?_ she didn’t think Croach could read minds, but if he could, he would have heard her shouting.

Croach nodded slowly, one corner of his mouth pulling up just a bit again. Before anyone but her could see the gesture, his face returned to martian passive.

If it wouldn’t have caused her to fail the test, she would have let out a woop of joy. Well, there’d be time for that later.

* * *

 

“All right Red,” Nevada said. It was dark again. They’d spent the day with the tribe, and left an hour or two before dark to head for the Forest of Tak’slaw. Nevada had pulled a bottle out of his pack and was twisting the lid off. “I reckon this is your last hurrah. Once you get your nanotech--”

“Nah Nohtek,” she corrected, and stole a glance at Croach, who had glanced back at her with a not-so-martian glint of approval in his eye. “Stop butcherin’ our language.”

“Whatever,” Sparks said, continuing by taking a swig out of the bottle he brought. “I figure if Croach can’t have a drink, you ain’t gonna be able to, either. So have a drink with me, Red. For the last time.”

“Well, I reckon… I hadn’t really thought of that. Huh. No more space rotguts at the Space Saloon.”

“The human designated Barkeep prepares excellent non-alcoholic carbonated beverages,” Croach spoke up, from his place by the fire, finishing warming up the chunks of gamma-ray deer the tribe had given them for dinner that night. They had to miss out on most of the feast to get an early start to the forest. Sparks had to be back to town the day after tomorrow. Gork was doing a fine job as Sheriff, but the planet couldn’t go long without its marshal.

“Good to know, thanks Croach. Now Red… drink with me.” Sparks passed her the bottle, and Red sniffed at it experimentally.

“My last drinks for the rest of my life and you brought space tequila? What, did you get this from the mutantes, or the Gonzalez’s distillery?”

“Nah this is the good stuff. It’s… from Earth.”

Red rolled her eyes, but took a swig anyway. “Yeah, that ain’t bad, I suppose,” she said. “You bring anything to cut it with?”

“Just what you got in your canteen.”

Red took another swig, and suppressed the shudder which ran through her body when swallowing. Truth be told, she never was much of a drinker. If she had just a little too much tonight, maybe she wouldn’t ever miss it at all. She passed the bottle back to Sparks, who leaned back on the rock behind him and took his own swig.

“Please remember, The Red Plains Rider, should you still have alcohol in your system when you receive your Nah Nohtek tomorrow, it may cease to function. Immediately.”

Red didn’t have to ask how he knew this. They all knew how he knew.

Sparks shrugged, and took yet another gulp of the tequila, while Croach pulled three plates out of his pack.

“Sparks Nevada, the act of preparing this meal reduces my onus to you a small amount. The Red Plains Rider, it increases your onus to me by an equally small amount,” he reminded them both.

“Yeah, I know Croach, I owe you a bunch for everything you done for me this past couple of months. No way I woulda passed today’s trial without you. Thank you.”

Red nearly reached into her pack, but thought better of it the last second. Sparks, while he had his very kind moments, wouldn’t get the gift she was planning on giving Croach. Gifts could wait until tomorrow, anyway. Until after the Hee-Ros K’west.

The food was filling, and took the edge off the couple of gulps of tequila Red had had, so she took a couple more. She figured she wouldn’t get any sleep if she was just spending the entire evening doing nothing but worrying.

They talked that night, about the upcoming trials, and a little about the past. Red asked Sparks when he was going to start looking for a new lady, and it felt all right to talk to Nevada about such a thing, though Sparks mostly sputtered and grunted as an answer. She didn’t bother asking Croach. That didn’t feel right. He hadn’t really taken any interest in anyone since… well, she realized, he hadn’t ever had any interest in anyone else but her.

They sat all together after Croach cleaned up the camp and laid out the bedrolls (more onus), one man set on each side of her. Sparks took at least twice more swigs from the bottle as she did until it was down by a good third. Red saw Croach’s eyes dart to it a few times before looking away quick, and then she made Sparks put it away. She’d had enough to relax and feel kinda loose, but not so much that she’d regret drinking in the morning, anyway.

He grumbled a bit, but did it, and not long after, went to sleep.

“What will you do when approached by the Yarnato, The Red Plains Rider?” Croach asked quietly, after Sparks’ snoring started.

“Subdue it, then allow it to guide me through the trials. Croach, you’ve drilled all of it into me so much my head’s gonna burst if I have to think on it any more.”

“I do not apologize, The Red Plains Rider. We lose one in every six younglings to the Hee-Ros K’west. I do not wish for you to be lost in the Karpagian Mists.”

“Yeah? Then tell me what I’ll find back there,” Red replied, cocking an eyebrow. She knew he wouldn’t tell her, but she’d still goad him a bit anyway.

“I cannot, The Red Plains Rider. I would be under onus to you if I did.”

“You ain’t under onus to me for not?” she asked, nudging his shoulder with his own.

“You should be glad I did not place you under onus to me for the mere act of asking.”

Red turned a bit, and punched Croach’s bare arm, lightly.

“You are under onus to me for bringing harm to my arm,” Croach said.

“I did not even-” Red sputtered. She didn’t remember having that much to drink, but she coulda hit him harder than she thought.

“The Red Plains Rider, I was attempting to utilize Earth-humor to ease your tension. I am under onus to you for failing to do so.”

“Croach… were you trying to make a joke?”

“I- I believed it would help.”

The silence hung there for a short second while Red considered, then a smile cracked over her lips.

“Oh. Well then. It did. I mean, not the actual joke. But... you tried. And that helped.”

“For that, I am pleased.”

A slight breeze flitted over them, and Red turned her head to look at Croach, while drawing her knees to her chest.

“You worried about me?” she asked.

“I do not doubt your abilities in the trials. It is what will be beyond the mists which concerns me.”

“Can you tell me about what happened to you? Anything?”

Croach’s eyes flicked up to hers, then away. “No. I cannot.”

Another silence settled between them for a moment, the kind that Red couldn’t tell if it was comfortable or not.

“Croach… I just… before I go in there, really, thank you. You and me we- well we’ve been through a lot. All of this reminded me of being kids together again.”

Croach turned to look at her fully. The orange firelight warmed his skin and mirrored off his eyes. The shadows flickering across his face reminded her too much of sunsets and long fireside nights they’d shared. Back before so many mistakes were made.

It was almost too easy to forget right then exactly why they hadn’t worked before.

“I recalled several similarities to our youth as well, The Red Plains Rider. Your returning to the tribe is… pleasing. To the tribe. They are accepting of your return.”

“And you?” Red asked.

“I would not have done all I could to ensure your success in the trials had I not been pleased. The determination you showed in your studies is… impressive.”

“Reckon I wouldn’t have had the patience for such a thing a few years ago. Thanks for showing me how to find it.”

“Perhaps I did not show you, it was yours to find. And now you have.”

“Reckon there’s a lot about both of us we’ve found out in the last couple of years.”

“Yes, The Red Plains Rider. I believe that is so.”

Red hadn’t realized how close their faces were, with their talking low because of the hour of the night, and Nevada sleeping nearby. Her heart felt… well it felt something, something familiar, in an old way, and before she could recognize what it was, Red realized she was leaning towards Croach.

He, tenuously, was leaning too.

Red’s eyes widened, and she could tell Croach caught her surprise before she did. He pulled back, sitting straight up with his back flat to the rock, looking forward.

“Your breath contains many alcohol atoms. Perhaps you should sleep now, The Red Plains Rider. I will wake Sparks Nevada to take watch in several hours.”

Red was about to object, as Croach probably didn’t sleep much the night before, but he never slept much anyway.

“Yeah uh, thanks Croach. I’ll take the last watch. See ya in the morning,” she said, and slowly moved away. As she crawled into her pack, she tried not to wonder how much of Croach’s pulling away was because of not wanting to be near the alcohol, and how much was just because of how close they were.

 _That starcraft launched a long time ago, Red_ , she told herself. _No use digging up the past_.

Still, she found herself peeking out from underneath her heavy eyelids a time or two before sleep claimed her, really noticing for the first time in a long time the lines of worry on Croach’s face, and how his antenna twitched at sounds or sights she couldn’t even begin to sense. A flood of warm memories lulled her to sleep.

* * *

 

“I got here, I got gumption, and I got it in me to be worthy!”

“All right, Red, good luck then.”

“I ain’t need luck. Be right back! Unless I die!”

The Red Plains Rider walked into the mists, expecting to hear something behind her, but as soon as she was enveloped in the swirling greyness, everything seemed to go silent. Either Sparks and Croach had decided for once to see what it was like to spend twenty seconds together while not antagonizing each other, or the mists dampened sound as much as they dampened what she could see in front of her.

But Croach had told her, and the scrolls said, keep walking forward until you faced your trial, so she walked. Part of her wanted to draw her rifle, but since she seemed to solve most problems by shooting them, maybe her test was not to shoot.

Her irritation at Nevada doing all her forest trials for her started to fade. Croach gotten her ready for trials, so Croach guiding her through the forest just felt even more right than having the Yarnato do it, she realized. She’d have to thank him for that -- once she got out of here.

So, she walked, grateful for her hat and her coat because this forest was starting to feel as wet as laying around in the lake the farther she walked into it. She was beginning to wonder if she’d really walked straight at all, and maybe was going in a circle when she heard it -- Croach, crying out in pain, and Sparks calling Croach’s name right after.

 _What the hell kind of trouble could those two have gotten into this quick?_ she thought.

Red spat a curse. The sound had definitely come from behind her, but she was supposed to keep walking forward. If she went back to help Nevada and Croach, she might fail her Hee-Ros K’west, and she would never be judged worthy. If she wasn’t killed, she’d be shunned from the tribe, and after all the work she’d been through, she didn’t want to face that.

On the other hand, Croach was hurt. She heard another anguished moan just a second or two after the first, not that kind that he made when healing up quick, and her heart was made up. Croach might have to shun her if she failed the quest, but at least he’d be alive to do the shunning.

Red pulled the rifle from her back as she was turning, and charged the way she’d come. Nevada called for her once, she thought, hard to tell when running, but then there was a scream from him, too. Her heart pounded as she moved as fast as the forest let her towards where she’d left them just a couple of minutes before.

She slowed just enough to have her rifle cocked and ready for anything as she stepped into the clearing.

At first, it didn’t look like there was anything there. No Sparks, no Croach, and nothing that would have caused those two to shout.

Then she took a better look, and on the ground were two bodies, one blue, one red and pink.

“Git up!” she ordered, but they didn’t obey.

Red scanned the clearing one more time, then walked over and fell to her knees between them. “Get up Nevada! Croach!”

She put a hand on each of their chests and shook, but neither moved, and then she noticed that they both had their eyes open. Her hands trembled as she moved one to Sparks’ neck to feel for a pulse. Nothing.

“No, no, _no_!” Red breathed, then moved to Croach and touched the tip of one of his antenna. That should have woke him, but didn’t. She put her hand against the center of his chest then a few inches down, feeling for his pulse the best she knew how, but didn’t feel one.

Red turned back to Sparks and beat on his chest like she’d seen in a few holovids, then pinching his nose and blew air into his mouth.

Croach… she didn’t know what to do for Croach. She hit the places over his chest where she knew he had some hearts, but martians didn’t need to breathe the same as humans and she just didn’t know. Croach had prepared her for everything, she thought. But not this.

She didn’t know how long she tried for, but nothing worked, on either of them. They weren’t bleeding, no wounds, just… nothing.

She found herself sitting back on her haunches, staring into the forest like the trees might have an answer.

But Sparks and Croach were gone, just gone, the two that mattered most to her.

“Who did this?” she asked to the silence around her, which didn’t answer back. Her brain quickly paged through the entire Forest of Tak’slaw bestiary that Croach had made her memorize, but nothing she knew of could kill a martian and a human without leaving a scratch that she could see. Whoever or whatever it was would be long gone by now, she realized, and then she felt her eyes start to sting and her chest tighten up.

No, crying wouldn’t solve a damn thing, so she swallowed that down and instead she thought “What would they do?” Then she knew what to do. Red turned to the ground, to look for tracks.

Footsteps of… something, that wasn’t her and wasn’t them lead out a way into the misty side of the clearing that she hadn’t left to or come from, so she picked up her rifle and got to her feet

“I’ll be back for you two,” she said to the bodies in the clearing, then skulked back into the mists.

The trail wasn’t perfect, but it was clear enough with the damp ground and the disturbed mist on the leaves as whatever killed Sparks and Croach passed through. She went as fast as she could without losing the trail, trudging through a thick puddle that sunk into her boots, and clamoring over a felled tree that disappeared into the mists in both directions. She walked for what felt to her like hours, but was probably just minutes. The trail seemed to get fresher the farther she went, until she could hear something, just ahead of her.

She moved quickly, her rifle cocked onto her shoulder, ready to confront whatever it was that had taken the only two people she could ever depend on away from her.

Then she heard the splash, and the sound of something dragging its legs through water.

“No,” Red whispered, and ran forward, but she stumbled over some errant branch in her way, and had to catch herself on a nearby tree. Once righted, she emerged into the clearing ahead.

There was nothing but a lip of a big body of water fifty feet ahead, which quickly disappeared into the mists.

“NO!” Red yelled, charging ahead across the open space before the lake’s edge...

“ _Do not drink from the Apotheosis Springs, The Red Plains Rider_ ,” Croach's voice said, somewhere deep in her memory.

“I ain’t gonna drink, Croach,” Red mumbled, but her feet stopped a few feet before her boots touched the water.

“ _The springs are sacred, and to disturb them would mean shame and exile, and possible death,_ ” Croach explained, his voice almost passive.

“Whatever killed you is in there. I gotta get to it.”

“ _Must you_?” Croach's voice asked in her mind.

Red didn’t have an answer. Her head spun with the question.

The martians, _her people_ , had said not to touch the springs. Did it matter, if she’d already failed her trials? Did it matter if she died, with Croach and Nevada gone?

Red fell to her knees, a few feet from the water, and screamed in anguish. She breathed deep to clear her head.

Just as she did, the springs boiled, and the sudden eruption of steam bursting forth from what had looked like calm waters rushed deep into her lungs, scalding on the way down.

She understood, the springs weren’t just sacred, they really were deadly. She pushed back a few feet and sat on the ground and screamed again, this time in pain and surprise, but her throat felt so damaged that no sound came out. Her head spun now with every labored breath.

The waters spurted again, this time surging forward with a new burst of steam. Red grabbed handfuls of mossy grass to help drag herself away from the boiling waters closing in.

Red tried to push herself to her feet, but only made it half up before the back of her boots nearly got licked by the encroaching water. Pain shot up from the tips of her toes to her heels, making it even more difficult to stand. Red crawled and dragged herself away from the scalding death that inched up behind her, until she got to her feet enough to stumble back into the trees.

She knew then that she didn’t want to die, even if she didn’t have a tribe to return to, or friends to return with.

Red made it a dozen feet back into the forest when she realized that the water was no longer creeping up behind her. She turned and saw that it waited at the treeline, and it again looked cool and refreshing. Her scalded throat ached for a drink, but instead she leaned against a tree and pulled out her canteen. Her hands shook as she tried to unscrew the cap, and her limbs became heavy.

The canteen dropped from her grip as Red tried to stand up and get away again, but her legs gave out on her. The pain from her feet and lungs caught up with her brain, then overtook her.

Everything went dark. She felt her body slam against the wet ground, and that was the last thing she felt.

For a time she couldn’t measure, everything was quiet and black. The pain in her lungs and feet was gone. In fact, it felt like her lungs, and arms and entire body were all gone. There was only the vast, endless void.

Then way off in the distance of the black, something moved. She watched closely and saw something moved out of that, and something else from that. Red’s mind could barely comprehend what she saw as it grew, a mass of swirling movement, branching off of itself to more branches, then even more, and more, until everything she saw was color and shapes and patterns beyond measure or scale.

The fractals.

“ _You did not drink_ ,” a voice beside her said, but she couldn’t turn her head to see the man who was speaking. He spoke in English, but with the cadence of a martian.

“Wasn’t supposed to. Martians don’t tell you not to do something if’n you’re supposed to do it,” Red responded, but her mind was struggling to place the voice. It was somewhere, buried deep in her memory.

“ _But what of your friends?_ ” a woman’s voice asked. Again, familiar but unplaceable.

“If they’re gone, me dying won’t make it better,” she answered.

“ _But you still desire vengeance?_ ” the male asked.

“If there’s a threat that could kill the two toughest and best draws on G’loot Praktaw after me, I reckon I gotta take care of it. And yeah, I want it dead, so it’s gonna get dead. But I guess I can’t get killed doing it.”

There was no response, so finally Red asked, “Was that even real, or was it my trial? Are Sparks and Croach alive, or is this some kind of weird exhaustion hallucination dream I’m havin’?”

“ _Awaken, and find your guide and your witness, G'rop N'go-goth_ ,” the woman responded.

The fractals burst, the colors and lines turning into an indescribable mass that overwhelmed her senses. Parts felt like they were flying right at her. Red opened her eyes, her whole body jerking in surprise, trying to avoid the explosion.

She wasn’t laying in the clearing where she’d left Sparks and Croach, or in the forest next to the boiling spring, but just in the middle of a bunch of trees and mist where she couldn’t tell which direction was better than any other.

Somewhere in her mind, a part she could shove away but not shut off, the fractals lazily drew back together, the millions of pieces that had flown at her sliding back together one at a time. Red laid there and waited a minute until they formed a new shape with new colors. That, she could deal with.

Red sat up, and took a deep breath. She was glad to feel that her lungs were fine. She flexed her feet in her boots, and they were wet, but the blisters she expected on her heels and soles weren’t there.

And then she heard maybe the best thing she’d ever heard.

“Raythum, I’m _Sparks Nevada, Marshal on Mars_.”

Red let out one small laugh, relieved beyond measure to hear his stupid, cocky voice. She tried to stand, feeling woozy on her feet, fractals still turning her around every which way. She leaned against a tree, then more stumbled than walked towards the voices she heard, one she didn’t recognize, and then, just before coming back to where she’d left them, the other best thing she ever heard.

“I know something that may free us from the adhesive properties of this web, Sparks Nevada.”

Red shoved the feeling that welled inside when she heard that voice back down, clutching at a tree, intent on just making it to them.

She pushed herself to the edge of the clearing, and there they were. Webbed up about twenty feet high, with a giant spider and a couple of humans below them, sure, but alive. This, she could handle. She stepped into the clearing, fractals fading but still there, and looked up at Sparks and Croach. One word came first to her mind.

“Bagropa.”

**Author's Note:**

> Just like Jib Janeen, I had no idea how badly I wanted Red and Croach to get back together until after it happened, and now life before Dinner and a Groovy seems like a cold, dark time. :p Anyway, this came out of a conversation Mansion, tinycatfeet and I were having, so, I actually got around to writing it. I missed writing for the Onusverse anyway, so, it was nice to get back into it.
> 
> So thanks to both of them all of us bouncing around the initial ideas, and then Mansion for being my even more excellent than usual beta for telling me straight out that a big section wasn't working, then helping me figure out how it SHOULD go, and now after wiping out about 1500 words and writing about 3000 more, I'm really happy with it. 
> 
> Also thanks to all the ladies and gents of TAHrch and the Nerdzone for being the best and most fun buddies a girl could hope to chat with many hours a day and maybe spend an entire weekend with. <3


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